Potato shaped like a thingy

In honour of this currently for sale on eBay.

Before you ask: I would explain why my brother is only wearing one shoe but the reason for the lack of said footwear is so unbelievably mundane that recounting it would probably tip me over the edge - just put it down as a bored farmer thing.

Weekend ahoy!

Well at least for me since I finished work at 7AM this morning and don't have to be back at work till 7AM on Sunday (hopefully later).

Tomorrows plans are to run pROJECT mAYHEM into the local garage as it has started to lose power steering fluid from somewhere which is not really what I want in life. Hopefully this is just a result of the missing bracket that was highlighted on VW's check over and the pipe that it is supposed to hold has been rubbing and worn through. Otherwise it is probably the seals on the power steering pump itself that has gone tits-up which is not so good but still not exceptionally bad when compared to the cost of the ECU replacement. Either way I will be pushing to get it back tomorrow night (Thurs) if at all possible.

Assuming that I do get the van back tomorrow, Friday will be spent at Curbar trying the usual projects and maybe starting off this years campaign on Gorilla Warfare.

Friday night will be spent drinking wine in Leeds and then off to explore some North Yorkshire grit on the Saturday. Where depends on how far the "dear boy" is prepared to drive but he didn't seem too put off by the prospect of a trip up to Slipstones when it was mentioned in the pub earlier. A "casual" mention of the fact that the Black Sheep brewery is in the vicinity has hopefully swung this as the choice of venue so maybe the outstanding project that is Right Hand Twin will get resolved.

Saturday night - make it up as we go along!

Hotter than the sun.

A.K.A. how to cook a Chilli that will take paint off the wall.

Chilli was probably the first thing I taught myself to cook, and while this recipe has changed beyond all recognition from those early efforts, my search for the perfect chilli recipe goes on. It's about as close as I can get at the minute but one day I will figure out how to improve it that little bit more. Till then here is the best chilli recipe that I know.

Take some garlic and chop it fine. Add in two scotch bonnet and six birds eye chilli's both finely chopped. It is important to use the two different sorts of chilli's as they have different qualities when it comes to the heat that they generate - the scotch bonnets give an immediate heat that is then replaced by the after burn of the birds eye chilli's in the finished dish.

Fry the lot in a large pan with some oil - be prepared to go temporarily blind if you get too close to the pan at this point.

Throw in two pounds of the best mince you can find - low fat content is the key here but not to the point where there is no fat present at all - you need a bit of fat to make it taste right. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Leave for a couple of minutes and add a little Cayenne Pepper and more importantly Paprika.

Once the mince has browned off nicely then add Tomato Puree, three tins of Chopped Tomatoes and two cans of Kidney Beans.

After that leave to cook for two to three hours and then let it stand for 24 hours. The standing period is the most important bit as it lets everything mellow out.

I am aiming to try a variation on this soon using Chipotle Chilli's (these are dried and smoked jalapeños) and combine this with chocolate to produce a more Texan variation of chilli which I will post up when I get round to it.

Alain Robert

Earlier I got text from friend asking if I was watching the antics of Alain Robert, the limelight loving, attention seeking French climber of buildings on TV.

My reply was something along the lines of "I would view watching anything with him in it as a waste of an hour of my life".

Feeling a bit guilty about this rather terse missive I sent one back later saying "Sorry if that last text was a bit harsh but Alain Robert is a cretin of the highest order and should not be allowed the oxygen of TV that he so desperately craves IMO".

My guess is this probably qualifies as a fail in the way of an apology but I am blaming Alain Robert for this - it only seems right somehow...

A new truimph of over engineering

As briefly mentioned in the last post I was considering getting the storage\bed started and as you can see from the pics below I have got that stage under way in the last few days.

All going pretty well actually as I seem to be getting better at cutting wood in general though anything that requires an angle that is not 90 degrees tends to go a bit Pete Tong at times. One slight problem is that one of the main stays on the bottom is warped (which I knew at the time and tried to work round) but is causing slight concern at the minute as the next stage is probably going to be to fit the internal panels to separate the storage space. While I know that the frame has enough flex in it to compensate for the warp now it might not once I add more structure to it so I have got to figure out a way around that before I can progress any further. Other than that the usual curse of needing three other things in place before a job can be completed is starting to raise its ugly head on this part of the project now. I want to shape the back of the storage so that it follows the line of the panels but until the panels are carpeted and fitted I don't know what shape the back is going to take which has the knock on effect of being unable to fix it to the floor. Aargh!!

Even with all of these "problems" to work around I am getting close to having the wood stuff done and dusted I think. The internal panels have been roughly cut out now though there will have to be something removed from the edges before I can fit them in place to allow for how much space will be taken up once the ribs have been carpeted. Even better than that I am pretty sure I have figured out a way of fitting them that doesn't involve drilling holes in the internal braces where there are already VW fixtures in place. It has always been a bit of an aim of mine to drill as few holes as possible in the van and while I will have to drill some holes for the upper sections of the barn doors and the top panel of the side (unless I have another great idea) the main panels themselves won't require them. As with any of my solutions it probably involves a lot more work than banging in a series of self tapping screws but my Heath Robinson approach to engineering has served me well so far so why change?

Rethink

I would have loved to have got the carpeting done next month on the pROJECT mAYHEM build but it has become apparent that there are way too many other things to do before that. I seem to be at the stage where one thing depends on another thing being in place which usually requires a third thing to be sorted before you can make progress.

The revised plan that I have now come up with is:

• Finish cutting out the interior panels in rough form.
  

• Fit leisure battery and split charger.

• Fit the fuse box for the electrics and install the reversing camera.

• Remove the roof lining and cover that, carpet the interior, carpet the sub woofer\amp enclosure, get the lights ready to go in and the tweeters installed.
  

• Insulate behind the panels, under the roof lining and run in speaker cables and wiring for lights in rear doors.
  

• Wire up the rest of the lights and switches, the sub\amp enclosure and speakers and fit all the above.
  

• Build the sleeping platform\storage.
  

All in all a bit frustrating at the minute but at least the sub\amp enclosure is finished (or at least as finished I can get it for now) and the sleeping platform can probably be started with the purchase of a few more lengths of wood for the frame. No doubt there will be other stuff that requires doing as well but if all else fails I will just have to go climbing.

Good day\Bad day or some random combination thereof

To be honest the last couple of days have been pretty bloody good actually after returning from the home county of Suffolk which always tends to weird me out for some reason or another. Yesterday was spent getting back on with pROJECT mAYHEM stuff and today was spent trying to slay a couple of nemeses at Curbar with Sloper. Do I need to say that the two nemeses I am referring to are Strawberries and The Ultimate Gritstone Experience? Probably not...

Strawberries didn't go particularly well - felt all out of sorts on it and the best I did was to get half way through the rock over move at which point I started to believe that it was possible, scraped my right hand up the face and lost it. Spent a while after trying but it turned into too much of a process of breaking it down into individual moves and trying to link them. The end result was that nothing was flowing so I sacked it off - even so I feel I have broken some sort of barrier with it though quite what it is I am not 100% sure at the minute.

Anyway after feeling a bit out of sorts on Strawberries it was a bit of a trudge off up the hill to TUGE (standing start). After a couple of finger scraping attempts with a duff sequence Sloper pointed me in the right direction and the bottom section just clicked. Reached my previous highpoint in way more control than I had before and after that it was (almost) smooth as silk to there every time. I got to that point at least four\five times and at one stage I had my left mitt over the top of the overhang on a really good hold but a combination of sheer excitement\anxiety, a foot blowing and not having a clue what to do robbed me of a possible send. Regardless of that I made tangible progress today and I have a couple of good ideas on how to proceed past my new highpoint so it's looking really good.

So to sum things up: gritstone season is not quite here yet but one big YYFY moment is in the pipeline fo' sho!!